This invention relates to the fields of computers and communications. More particularly, a system and methods are provided for facilitating the transcription of recorded audio, with auditing of the transcription to promote a desired level of accuracy.
Raw audio, such as speech, is often recorded during telephone calls, meetings, dictation and other situations. An audio recording may be made for archival purposes, later replay, for monitoring and/or other purposes.
For example, a call center may be operated to receive telephone calls from people seeking a product or service. A call may be recorded to allow a supervisor to review an operator's or agent's handling of the call or to verify a caller's order at some later time.
It may be necessary or desirable to transcribe recorded audio to obtain a transcript, perhaps to generate a shipping order for the caller. However, there is nothing to keep a transcriber from accidentally or purposefully generating an inaccurate transcription, because usually no one will review her work. If the transcription is used to place an order or address a shipment to the caller, an inaccurate transcription may lead to further errors that may be costly to correct.
A transcriber may be less than diligent in her transcription, for example, if she is in a hurry to finish her work, has many recordings to transcribe, is paid on a per-transcription basis, or for other reasons. As a result, it may be difficult or impossible to achieve a desired level of transcription accuracy or even measure an existing level of transcription accuracy. In addition, if a recording is garbled or otherwise flawed, existing transcription methods cannot retrieve the missing or undecipherable content.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method that, in addition to facilitating the transcription of recorded audio, can also take action to verify the accuracy of a transcription.